Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence

When we debate foreign and defence policy today, the thoughts and feelings of us all will be with our armed forces and their families. Our responsibility in this House to debate and decide on the right policies, whether on the Afghanistan conflict or elsewhere, is a daunting one. Whether it is the fears of families with loved ones now on the front line or the tears of families with loved ones lost or seriously injured, the human cost and sacrifice made by those who send us here must never be forgotten in our deliberations. I join others who have paid tribute to the bravery and courage of our troops and their relatives, and it is therefore right today that we should focus on Afghanistan. In an interview that he gave to The Guardian at the weekend, the Foreign Secretary seemed to be worried that the Opposition parties were about to break the eight-year cross-party consensus in support of the war. Although he has now had to leave his place, may I put it on the record for him that the speeches and interviews that he and the Prime Minister have given in recent days and weeks, in which they have talked about forthcoming changes in strategy on Afghanistan, have gone some way to reassuring us? It is true that over the past year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) and I have become increasingly concerned at how the war is being prosecuted. The lack of progress in both the military and civilian fields causes us, like many in the House and outside, to question the international security assistance force's strategy and, therefore, Government policy. In this debate last year, I argued that it was inconceivable to follow a strategy based on NATO troops remaining in Afghanistan for 30 years, as some had been arguing. Neither the British public nor the Afghans could support that. There therefore needed to be a change in strategy. Last year, alone in the House—alone from the Front Benches, at least—I advocated talking to parts of the Taliban and adopting a regional approach, involving countries such as Pakistan, India, Iran, China and Russia. I emphasised the urgent need for a new political and diplomatic strategy alongside the military approach. When I read the Foreign Secretary's speech to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly last Tuesday, when he spelt out, in much greater detail than I believe he had before, a political strategy to divide the insurgency and reintegrate the reconcilable back into the Afghan mainstream, I was therefore greatly encouraged. Although I have some lingering doubts, which I shall touch on shortly, his advocacy of a national reintegration organisation and an Afghan resettlement fund seems to be along the right lines. There must now be some serious resources and structures invested in winning over tens of thousands of Afghan insurgents. Equally, it was welcome to see in the Foreign Secretary's NATO speech more analysis of the importance of involving Afghanistan's neighbours, even though he confined his detailed remarks, perhaps understandably, to Pakistan. Let me therefore tell Ministers that if the ISAF strategy is about to change in ways that we have argued for and that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have been alluding to, we will continue to support the mission in Afghanistan.